


The Two Shadows

by KaenOkami



Category: Haikyuu!!, 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Competition, Crossover, First Meetings, Friendship, Gen, Insecurity, Rescue Missions, Teamwork
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-15 23:29:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28821531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaenOkami/pseuds/KaenOkami
Summary: Called to an emergency situation that will require both speed and precision, Tokoyami worries that he doesn't have enough control over his Quirk to safely rescue civilians. It takes some healthy competition from another shadowy hero to push him past his limits.Or, Kageyama makes friends, in his own Kageyama way.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 21





	The Two Shadows

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Heroes of the Court zine.

Even being the proud creature of darkness that he was, Fumikage had known since he was just a chick that he was going to be a hero. It wasn’t just about using his Quirk to do good, though of course that was his driving goal. Raw power like his needed to be meticulously trained and channeled, so it could be used for protection instead of the destruction it was naturally inclined towards. Safety first, as his mother used to say.

Fumikage was even further assured that he had made the right choice once he met his class at Yuuei. Explosive powers like Bakugou’s or Midoriya’s were wild and almost frightening to behold, and he dedicated himself even more fiercely both to keeping up with the likes of them, and to the hero program that would bring him to a new level. For the most part, it was exactly what he had envisioned: the exact strength and confidence booster he had needed.

Of course, though, the road to becoming the perfect hero had to be a rocky one. Dark Shadow was a largely neutral force — certainly the farthest thing from malicious — but that did not make it any less frightening when it surged with too much power for him to contain, like endless water breaking through a crumbling dam. The incident on the mountain, when he had however briefly lost control of it in the darkness right in the middle of a villain attack, had rattled him considerably. 

It had been a long while since then, but the nauseating sensation of being both helpless and dangerous in such a life-or-death situation was one he knew he’d never forget. He remembered how it had gnawed at the back of his mind during the rescue phase of the provisional licensing exam, when that feeling had still been fresh there: how his Quirk was undeniably suited towards a brutal offense, which would make him a force to be reckoned with when there was a villain to be pummelled. But when there were civilians to be defended or handled with care? It could easily become a liability. 

As such, Fumikage’s first reaction upon receiving a call to action for an inner-city rescue mission was one of concern.

Finding out, on his way, that the burden would not fall squarely upon his shoulders eased his mind a bit. Midoriya would be there, for one, as would other heroes-in-training from Karasuno High. He had to admit that he didn’t know much about the school or the sorts of heroes its program produced — Miyagi Prefecture was a considerable distance from Musutafu, after all — but if they were of the same caliber as the other schools his class had worked and competed with, he would trust them implicitly. 

By the time he reached the eastern district of the city, Fumikage had just about fully braced himself for whatever chaos he might find. (His enthusiastic father liked to call this “shifting into hero mode.”) 

He could feel Dark Shadow within him as well, right alongside the pumping of his heart. Despite the bright noon sun in a cloudless sky, his Quirk was stirred by the adrenaline in his veins, tentatively beginning to uncurl and prepare to burst out of his chest, ready to unleash the powers of darkness in his host’s name.

Fumikage did his best to fight down the shiver of worry that the easy read of his Quirk’s intentions so often gave him. Dark Shadow did not know, let alone understand, restraint, and would rely on his host to exert it for him. 

However, his attention was quickly grabbed by several other things at once, the instant he finally arrived on the scene.

“Tokoyami-kun!” He looked up at the sound of Midoriya’s fast, piercing voice, and saw him already darting around above him, glowing and sparking bright green. “We’re glad you’re here! Did you get the full briefing?”

“Yes!” As he spoke, he allowed part of Dark Shadow to arc outward from his shoulder blades, taking him aloft to meet his classmate. All around them, he could see large, human-sized blobs dotted in perilously high places on the surrounding buildings. “You took care of the spider villain this fast?!”

“Well—"

“Taking care of it right now!” crowed a new voice, equally shrill and excitable. Before Fumikage had even had a moment to turn his head and look, an orange blur shot by him so fast he felt its wind on him, nearly dislodging a loose feather or two. “Ace Hero Decoy, on the job! Pleased to meet you, Tsukuyomi!”

“The pleasure’s mine, De—” 

But the boy had already landed on the flat top of a nearby telephone pole, and pushed off from it with boots soled with a thick layer of springy material. Fumikage’s jaw dropped when Decoy shot up and out like a bullet, kicking another spider out of existence as he jumped onto another rooftop, and another, and another. A clear, pale orange afterimage of himself was left after every jump.

Midoriya, bracing to leap after him, was smiling. Fumikage followed his gaze a few hundred meters away, where a huge fusion of human and spider was taking up a street. It was frustratedly swinging its limbs and shooting heavy damp webbing at the small yellow and black bolt darting around it, which in turn was hitting its rough, fuzzy hide with light but fast flashes of electricity. 

“Now you’re here, Shouyou there and I are going to go help Rolling Thunder subdue the villain. Destroy any more eggs it might have, get civilians out of the way, all that. You won’t have to get everyone out of the webs alone, though, Decoy’s classmate will help you out. He’s—”

_“Come on,_ Deku!” Decoy’s voice carried on the wind. “Nishinoya-senpai’s waiting!”

“Well, I think the two of you will get along,” Midoriya finished quickly, his attention already on his task.

Fumikage opened his mouth again to ask for just a little more clarification, but with a blast of power from his legs, Midoriya was already gone. As such, he did not waste any more time, but gave his wings one mighty flap and propelled himself towards the nearest webbed-up victim as fast as he could. 

He felt, somehow, simultaneously more and less confident than he had on the way over. On the one hand, his instinct had been right: he trusted Midoriya, Decoy, and whoever this Rolling Thunder was to handle this situation perfectly, to the point that the giant spider villain was almost completely gone from his mind, replaced only with concern for the task at hand. 

On the other hand, there was the regular concern; his beak was too blunt to break through the thick, almost bouncy webbing (whatever this was, it certainly wasn’t silk threads), and he didn’t want any of it tangling around his mouth anyway. So it took several hard slashes from Dark Shadow to tear it apart enough for him to reach the person inside, scoop them up, and fly them down to the medical teams below to be treated for oxygen deprivation and the puckered, bloody sores being stuck into the webs had caused. 

Fumikage’s heart leapt into his throat when he first saw those bright drops of blood jump from their skin, and a fervent apology was on the tip of his tongue before he realized it wasn’t Dark Shadow’s sharp-edged feathers that had done it. 

The transport was so easy by comparison that he barely thought about it: a single swoop down to the street, and a great flap to ride the winds back up. However, it was in reaching the next ball of webbing that Fumikage found himself lacking. 

Logically, he knew he had to strike as hard and fast as he could to break through. But fear still gripped him tight, holding him back from using his Quirk’s full power. Dark Shadow, meanwhile, was no help, confused and fighting even more fiercely to let loose. Fumikage felt like a rubber band being pulled back: the longer the resistance lasted, the worse it would hit when he finally fully released.

As the seconds ticked by, he had barely managed to cut any of the threads away, and he didn’t sweat from the neck up but he could feel his whole head heating up with panic—

The web burst into shreds with a loud _snap_ like a broken rope, and Fumikage flapped backward in surprise: another attack by the villain?!

But no. The spider’s victim was limp and shaking, hardly conscious, and now wrapped around him were two wiry arms, clad in a costume that was thick meshy black lined with glinting steel. Two eyes black as midnight narrowed at him, singularly unimpressed. 

“So you’re Jet-Black Hero Tsukuyomi?”

Fumikage gives the strange boy one nod; behind his head, Dark Shadow gives several. “That’s right.”

“Hmph. From what I saw of you in the sports festival, I expected better. Why are you hesitating?” 

Before his eyes, the boy melted into thin air — no, wait, not air at all, Fumikage realized as he swooped down the side of the building alongside him. Every little shadow, in its network on the way to the ground, was rippling silver and black, and within seconds the other hero was down on the street handing the victim off to medics.

“That’s your Quirk, then?” Fumikage said, as he flapped Dark Shadow’s wings to follow the ripple of shadows back up and along a row of telephone poles to the next web ball. “You can—!”

“It doesn’t take a genius to notice,” the boy cut him off. His voice was low and commanding; it reminded Fumikage of Iida. “I’m Kageyama Tobio: Shade Hero Shadow Flyer to you. And my Quirk makes me stronger and faster the more time I spend in the shadows. So if you want to keep up with it, you had better quit holding back.”

Fumikage blinked, startled, while Dark Shadow chirped and purred approvingly behind him. “But, I don’t want to hurt the civilians any worse—”

“There’s nothing worse you can do than not break them out before it’s too late. See how much good it does you. See which of us comes out of this looking better.”

Before Fumikage could say anything else, Kageyama was back in the shadows and rushing away like the current of a stream. The power building in him, emanating from him, was already so strong that Fumikage could _feel_ it, like static electricity. Surely it would be too much for the next civilian to handle!

In moments, the web ball stuck up on top of a telephone pole had burst loudly open...and the victim was in Kageyama’s surprisingly gentle grasp, perfectly on his way to safety.

Fumikage blinked again.

It only took him half a second to shift back into hero mode, and he was acutely aware that that was half a second too long. With a mighty flap of his wings, Fumikage was shooting upwards, straight for the highest window of an office building, where another web ball was precariously hung. 

If Kageyama could use such a strong and volatile Quirk, with fine enough control that nobody was accidentally hurt, then so could he. He just had to focus on the job, to remind himself that he was in control of Dark Shadow and not the other way around...

Though his heart pounded as he unleashed his Quirk, Fumikage let part of Dark Shadow jut out of his forearms in the form of sharp-edged blades. Fighting not to restrain himself, he slashed rapidly at the web, and he could not exhale until it fell away to reveal the old lady inside. She was somewhat limp, but opened her eyes a fraction when she dropped softly into his arms.

“Oh...” she murmured, and he wondered what his large crow’s head looked like in her bleary, half-conscious vision. “A god?”

“No, ma’am,” said Fumikage politely, flying her downward. “Just a hero.”

For the first time that day, he felt fully in tune with Dark Shadow. He did not relax, exactly, but he darted between the webbing and the ground with the confidence and precision he had been striving for from the start. While he did fear a few near misses, any blood that welled up from the victims’ skin was the work of the spider villain, not him. 

(Behind him, he heard more and more electric keening and the cracking of exoskeleton under superpowered fists, and less and less screaming civilians and crashing of buildings, so he assumed Midoriya’s team was wrapping up their task just as well.)

When Fumikage had a free second to glance around for him, he observed Kageyama. He hadn’t been kidding about his Quirk: his travel made him fast and powerful, turning from a stream to a rushing river. He had to fly harder than he could ever remember flying before to keep up with him, to the point where it was almost a surprise when there wasn’t a single web ball left in sight.

As the spider villain let out one last keening cry and finally collapsed under a torrent of green, orange, and yellow flashes, Fumikage and Kageyama stood panting on the asphalt, watching the last ambulance speed away after a small boy was loaded into it. 

When Kageyama looked up to catch his eye, Fumikage saw that, though his face was as stony and serious as before, the glint of distaste had vanished from his gaze. “How many do you think you got?”

“Hmm...perhaps ten?”

Kageyama held his head up higher. “I counted eleven on my end. But you got a slow start. I’ll beat you fairly next time.”

Fumikage nodded solemnly. “I’d be honored to fight you on a more level playing field. Yours is a Quirk of truly great darkness.”

Kageyama’s face contorted, and his cheeks went pink. Before Fumikage could ask why, something shot by them in a bright lightning flash. The lightning’s gleeful voice carried behind him as he disappeared—

_“Kageyama’s making a fri-e-e-e-e-nd!”_

“Rolling Thunder! Wait up!” Midoriya was calling, roof-hopping after the sidekick. Decoy, on the other hand, skidded right up to throw his arm around Kageyama’s shoulder.

“He hoped you’d be impressed by his Quirk, Tsukuyomi! Can you tell he’s proud of it? That’s why he calls it ‘King of the Darkness!’ When he saw you in the sports festival, he really wanted to show it off to you!”

Fumikage smiled and offered, “If you wanted, I’d like to train with you sometime too, Shadow Flyer.”

Kageyama’s face flushed even deeper. “I — I wasn’t trying to make friends here, you know!”

“Ignore him!” Decoy laughed. “We’d be happy to see you and Deku again!”

Growling, Kageyama grabbed Decoy and rushed into a shadow with him. Dark Shadow chirruped in concern, and Fumikage turned to smile at him. 

“Don’t worry, they’re fine. And you and I are going to train even harder for the next time we meet them. We can’t disappoint our new friend, now can we?”


End file.
